


Surprise

by sibley (ferns)



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Cake, Coming Out, Fluff, Gen, Trans Characters, i made a post about this so. here it is.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 13:06:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13482099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferns/pseuds/sibley
Summary: “This was a bad idea,” Dawn muttered, pacing back and forth in Cisco’s kitchen. “No, it was a great idea. No, it was a bad idea. No, it was a great idea. No, it was a bad idea. No, it was a great idea. No, it was a bad idea. No-”





	Surprise

**Author's Note:**

> I made a post about this and it was too cute of a concept to pass up. Only warnings here are deadnaming out of ignorance.

“This was a bad idea,” Dawn muttered, pacing back and forth in Cisco’s kitchen. “No, it was a great idea. No, it was a bad idea. No, it was a great idea. No, it was a bad idea. No, it was a great idea. No, it was a bad idea. No-”

“You can decide not to go through with this if you want,” Cisco commented mildly from where he was carefully frosting their joint-effort cake, “it just means more cake for us”-Dawn sent a dirty look at the back of his head-“but I’d prefer if you didn’t burn a hole in my floor.”

Dawn stopped pacing and took a few deep breaths. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I’m just-really, really worried. Is that bad?”

“Of course not.” Cisco looked at her, eyes soft and sympathetic. “I get why you’re scared, kiddo. It’s totally understandable. Your mom and dad are great people. But until something like this happens, you’ll never  _ really  _ know if they are. Your dad’s one of the heroes of Central City, and he’s your hero. And you wanna know if he’s gonna still be the hero you’ve always thought he was.”

Dawn zipped over to him and managed to swipe a little frosting before Cisco could playfully bat her away with a warning  _ tsking  _ noise. “I just feel really stupid.” She sighed. “Dad’s a superhero. Mom may not think she’s a superhero, but she still kinda is.  _ Don  _ doesn’t even know yet! My own brother!”

The familiar anxious burning feeling is back in her throat. Cisco squeezed her shoulder. “I know.” He didn’t voice his own fears about this. “And you know that if this goes badly, Cindy and I always have a spot on our couch for you, okay? No matter what. Whether things go wrong today or five years from now. We’re here for you.  _ I’m  _ here for you.”

Dawn lowered her gaze to the countertop. “Well, at least our cake looks good.  _ Nothing  _ like the picture we were trying to copy, but… It looks good. I didn’t know one of your superpowers was cake baking.”

“I don’t advertise it often,” Cisco said wryly. “It’s an even bigger secret than my vibe powers. If anyone asks where we got this cake, tell them it was store bought.”

Dawn giggled. “Considering the squashed corners and the wonky lettering”-Cisco mock glared at her and gasped in fake outrage-“I really don’t think they’ll believe that. You kinda squished all the vowels but the consonants are too big. It looks good, but it doesn’t look  _ that  _ good.”

“It’s been  _ years  _ since I frosted a cake, okay? Leave me alone.” Cisco patted her back. “Now, do you want to call your parents, or should I? It’s okay if you can’t. When I told Dante, he was the first person to know, and then he helped me tell my mom and my dad. Hell, he practically told them for me. My role in this doesn’t have to begin and end with my flawless cake baking skills.”

“I think I can call them.” Dawn squared her shoulders. “I  _ think.  _ I can definitely text them.” She shook herself all over. “I can do this. I can do this. I’m Dawn West-Allen. I can do this. Totally.” 

Dawn got all of the way through the text of  _ ‘Come to Cisco’s house right now, bring Mom. Not an emergency’  _ when she dropped her chin onto her chest and closed her eyes. Just hit send. Just hit send. Just hit send. Just hit send. As easy as that. Wordlessly, she held the phone out to Cisco.

He took it and pressed send for her. “It’s going to be fine, Bean. I promise.”

Dawn groaned and buried her face in her hands. “‘Bean’? Really? It’s been, what, ten years?”

“Gimme a break, okay? It’s a cute nickname  _ and  _ I came up with it  _ and  _ you know you love it,” Cisco laughed. “Do you wanna wear those clothes we bought you the other week? You can probably change into them before Barry and Iris get here.”

“No,” Dawn answered reluctantly, thinking wistfully of the purple dress in Cynthia’s part of Cisco’s closet. She’d helped Dawn pick it out-it’d been years since Cisco shopped in the women’s section of  _ anywhere,  _ and while he still remembered how hopeless sizing was, he’d been too afraid to ask the salesperson for directions and all three of them had ended up hopelessly lost inside the store. That had been a good day.

“Your choice.” Dawn’s phone buzzed and she checked it, wincing and showing Cisco the reply from her dad of  _ ‘on our way!!!!’  _ accompanied by about twenty different smiley faces. Cisco winced back. “Well, at least he’s in a positive mood?”

Dawn threw herself at Cisco and hugged his midsection tightly. “God. God. Okay. I can do this. I can do this.”

“You can do this, and even if you can’t, you’re not a bad person, okay?” Cisco assured her. “You and your brother are the best kids I know. And  _ you’re  _ the bravest. Just don’t tell Don I said that.”

Barry and Iris had long stopped remembering to knock before they entered Cisco’s apartment, which, despite causing some extremely awkward and embarrassing moments in the past, he didn’t really mind. Dawn jumped about a foot in the air when the door opened, half hoping that it was Cynthia coming back early from her trip to Earth-12 and not actually her parents.

“What’s the big not-emergency?” Barry asked as he shrugged his coat off. Cisco rushed to grab the cake while Iris smiled at Dawn, relieved that she’d been telling the truth about it not being an emergency, and that nobody had so much as a cut on their finger.

Cisco pressed the tray that the cake was on into Dawn’s hands and she held it out wordlessly.

Barry looked down at it and Iris squeezed her husband’s hand tightly as she finished reading before he’d even started, a rare feat when your life partner was a speedster. Barry frowned at the purple-on-pink slightly cramped lettering that read  _ ‘Surprise! It’s a girl!’ _

“I… Don’t get it,” Barry admitted. “Cisco, are you-?"

Cisco shook his head and the grip Iris had on Barry’s hand got even tighter. “...Henry?"

Dawn balanced the cake with one hand and pointed at herself with her thumb with the other. “So, uh. Mom? You know how you always wanted a daughter?” Her voice cracked. “...Surprise.”

Cisco rescued the cake before it could get crushed by Iris’s hug. Dawn burst into tears and buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. Iris rubbed her back gently. Barry looked back and forth between his crying wife and daughter and Cisco, not entirely sure if he should join the hug or not. Cisco gestured to Iris and Dawn and gave Barry a significant look.

If Barry didn’t hug Dawn right now or say  _ something  _ to show that he wasn’t mad at her, she was going to think that he didn’t accept her, or think that she had done something wrong, or think that he was disappointed in her.

Barry didn’t hug her, but he did awkwardly pat her back. He cleared his throat. “Um-sweetheart?” Iris and Dawn both looked at him. Barry corrected himself. “Henry?”

Dawn winced and wiped at her tears. “Yeah, Dad?”

“You probably don’t want us to call you Henry anymore, huh?” Barry rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand. “Is there a name you  _ do  _ want to be called? Have you picked one out yet? Should me and your mom help you find one?”

Dawn brightened immediately. Cisco groaned. “Oh, here we go.”

Iris looked at him quizzically as Dawn planted her hands on her hips. “Dawn. My name is Dawn.”

“Oh, hell.”

**Author's Note:**

> DC: dawn and don have the same name because iris is bad at names and names in the future suck.  
> me, smart: dawn is trans and named herself ENTIRELY to fuck with people.


End file.
